This story by Annie Gilbertson of the Los Angeles NPR station KPCC reported a serious problem for the Gulen-related Magnolia charter chain.
“The Los Angeles Unified school district is investigating a network of eight charter schools for misuse of public school funds.
“An audit showed Magnolia Public Schools used classroom cash to help six non-employees with immigration costs. The schools had trouble justifying another $3 million expense.
“These are taxpayer dollars, and we want to make sure they are spent correctly,” said José Cole-Gutiérrez, director of L.A. Unified’s charter school division.”
“For years, the Magnolia’s books and bank account didn’t match.
An audit in 2012 based on a sampling of transactions found $43,600 missing from accounts: school records showed double payments made to vendors with duplicate invoices attached.
“There was an increased risk of inappropriate or unauthorized expenditures to remain undetected and a potential risk of fraud, abuse and misuse of public funds,” read the 2012 report.
“L.A. Unified officials have refused to release the follow-up audit concluded in June 2014….
“The letter, published by local education blog L.A. School Report, said Magnolia spent $3 million over four years to outsource governance tasks such as curriculum development, professional training and human resources – duplicate services that Magnolia had reported doing itself.
“Cole-Gutiérrez, the director of L.A. Unified’s charter school division, said the inspector general is reviewing whether to refer the case for criminal prosecution.
“You need to know where the public dollars are going – and they are supposed to be going to students,” he said.
“Magnolia administration is planning to fight the closures with the help of the California Charter School Association, which said in a statement the schools did not receive due process.
“It is troubling that more than 400 families, the majority of whom live in poverty, have very little information about why they have lost their high-performing schools,” California Charter School Association spokesman Jason Mandell wrote in a statement. He complained that L.A. Unified has not released the 2014 audit.
“State law also does not allow the district to conditionally renew a charter, let alone rescind that renewal without presenting its findings or providing the school with the opportunity to correct any issues,” he added.
“Last fall, the group stood behind San Fernando Valley charter school administers facing trial for embezzlement and money laundering. Yevgency “Eugene” Selivanov, founder of Ivy Academia Charter School, was then convicted and sentenced to almost five years in prison.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Gulen is under some scrutiny in Ohio, too: http://www.whio.com/news/news/local/charter-schools-center-complaints-ohio-board-ed/nggKc/
It’s about time someone investigated or at least raised questions.
This video was made last year and it features interviews from parents, teachers, that teach for the Gulen Concept Schools,Token American board members- they had them give “testimonials” on the school. It features Sedat Duman the arse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT2K_cwTPeE
“California Charter School Association, which said in a statement the schools did not receive due process.”
Due process for charter management organizations but not for teachers!
Do they even hear themselves anymore? They really need better message coordination 🙂
I’m actually not in favor of closing schools willy-nilly. The chaos will affect the whole system negatively, because it is a SYSTEM within a geographical area, no matter how many times the innovators deny it and no matter how many “choice!” websites they put up.
Hey, corporations are people, too! They’re just more privileged and allowed to hide behind laws that shield businesses and permit immoral employers to protect their bottom line at the expense of workers’ constitutional rights, such as to free speech and due process. But of course, they want those rights for themselves, since they are elites and entitled.
Either these guys are very inept or don’t know they’re supposed to keep double books when they’re defrauding the government, or they assume they will be protected by political allies, since their reach extends all the way up to the Whitehouse. I guess they never learned that crooks stop covering for each other when their own ass is grass.
I’m actually in favor of closing every charter school, since they are a capitalist tool being used by profiteers to siphon limited funds and destroy democracy in education, the profession of career educators and public education itself, and also because they are an ideological tool being used by unscrupulous social engineers who have convinced too many people that segregating poor children of color and treating them like criminals on a chain gang is just fine. None of that passes muster according to my ethics.
Citizen Concerned About Kids –I agree with you here- “I’m actually in favor of closing every charter school”. In my state -Most charters perform worse or no better than the district public schools. There are FBI investigations of charter schools in several states. Perhaps it is time to pressure our legislators in each state to repeal the charter school laws. If corporations want to invest in corporate charter schools, let them do it on their dime-not on the backs of taxpayers. The reformers have had a decade to prove these schools are better and a model for district public schools. It is time to voice that we are not interested in a dual public school system.
That’s exactly what I thought. “Due process” must be observed!
But not for people 🙂
The CA Charter org looks like a joke, honestly. They stuck by the last charter operator they defended thru a trial and straight thru to conviction and sentencing. That’s what the article says. I don’t know what it would take for them to bail.
I don’t really understand why local law enforcement is never involved in these cases:
“An audit in 2012 based on a sampling of transactions found $43,600 missing from accounts: school records showed double payments made to vendors with duplicate invoices attached.”
Why wasn’t that referred to a county prosecutor? Try taking 43k as a public school superintendent and getting caught. I think you’d be at least indicted, if not convicted. I recognize that public school employees steal too, but I see them in orange jumpsuits in the newspaper. These cases always seem to disappear under mountains of “audits” and “recommendations”
Where is that money? Where did it go?
In total agreement!
CCSA has no credibility they are the lobbying arm for Charter Schools so naturally they will defend one of their membership$. There is a lot more here than meets the eye and the entire Forensics Audit will be very damaging to the Accord Institute, Pacifica Intstitute, Magnolia Science Academies et al. CCSA even works closely with educating charter schools how to squeeze bond and grant money out of California (which they receive a fee for grant writing) they work closely with mycharterlaw.com Janelle Ruley who has filed an injunction to block closure of the money pit Magnolia #6 and #7. This will be held in superior court on 7/24. It seems strange that Mehmet Argin and Umit Yapanel and others from their operation on the west coast have spoken to CCSA since they have been giving no comment to members of the press. CCSA is wrong the Magnolia Science Academies knew for the last 3-4 years they had been operating in an insolvent financial situation. CCSA is the “Fox in the hen house” to cite California education regulations for closing a charter mean nothing the individual school districts have the ultimate control of these schools as they are not a state wide charter. As far as high performing,it is highly suspect that these schools would be high performing – this is what all the gulen operated charters try to claim, cheating scandals follow them everywhere they go, money scandals, employee abuses, sexual scandals, etc.,
Mehmet Argin came from the Gulen operation in Arizona- Sonoran Science Academy.
Umit (Matt) Yapaneal was the principal of the Lotus School for Excellence in Aurora, Colorado.
California rid yourself of this parasite called the Gulen Movement.
http://www.magnoliascienceacademy.blogspot.com
The story was written by Annie Gilbertson from the NPR station, KPCC. The LA Times has not yet written anything about this. You would have thought they’d have been the first ones on the story.
Annie Gilbertson has been building a reputation as the kind of reporter who does her homework and as a result has published many stories on the LAUSD iPad project that have brought light to many of the issues that have been hidden by the district.
We need to support her continued efforts and to praise KPCC for their extensive coverage on local education issues.
Here is an article which I wrote two weeks ago for City Watch. I am writing a follow up on Gulen’s strange allies in the US such as mega billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, and will include some of the info from this blog today. It was picked up and quoted verbatim by one the major Turkish news agencies. The comments at City Watch were varied, from calling me a liar, to extended activities of Gulen that show his power in the Middle East and his dangerous behaviors, all written by Turks.
_______________________________________
Fetullah Gulen : Phantom of the Poconos
The Gulen Movement is advertised by its’ leader and his PR advisors as a “transformational and social movement led by Turkish Imam, scholar and preacher, Fetullah Gulem.” This highly secretive movement is often compared to the Catholic secret society, Opus Dei. Their goal is to be the world’s leading Muslim network, and although it advertises that “it is funded by its’ own members” it is actually funded by American tax payers.
In the real light of day, Fetullah Gulen, who is the single largest charter school operator in the U.S., was chased out of Turkey by current Prime Minister Erdogan and his forces in 1999 and was given refuge in the United States, first by Bill Clinton, then by George Bush, and now by Barak Obama. He lives in a large compound with a fortress-like surrounding and many armed guards in the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania. From this protected enclave, and with the further protection of our government, he is fomenting revolution in Turkey to turn his homeland from a secular nation into an Islamist state ruled by strict Sharia law. Even though the Turkish regime wants him extradited to stand trial for promoting insurrection and various other scandals, he is safe in America, calling the shots for extremists in Turkey. He sends huge amounts of money to the Middle East and Turkey to promote his cause.
And this prodigious donation to influence Turkish/Sharia politics is all paid for by We the People, the American taxpayers.
Gulen is the largest owner of charter schools in the U.S. He owns about 147 active charter schools with dozens more awaiting approval in many states including California, with tens of thousands of students who are taken out of public schools to attend his Islamic based charters which teach Turkish language as their prime language and their main focus on Turkish history. He used to also teach Sharia law in these gender segregated schools, but when that became a problem he focused on math and science instead, and now teaches Sharia law on weekend outings for his students. His plan is to educate all students to follow him as their religious and political leader of Turkey, and all of them to return to his homeland with him as his supporters.
Most of his teachers, and all of his principals and other organizational leaders are Middle Eastern men who are allowed into the U.S. on green cards to run this multi billion dollar operation. According to the tax research done by Sharon Higgins who is the best reporter on his activities, he nets about $500 million a year, all on the back of the American taxpayer. Each student gets ADA money, average daily attendance, which the school district is mandated to release since the money for education follows the student. Each school has between 300 – 800 students financed by American tax money at about $7,000 per student, which represents a huge fortune over the past 15 years.
It is this money that is paying for fomenting revolution in Turkey where Gulen plans to return soon to become the nation’s leader and make his country a true Sharia ruled state. This means that girls no longer will be going to school, and all will be forced to wear purdah. Boys will be studying mainly Koran as in his madrassas world wide. In a addition to American charter schools, Gulen runs about 1,000 other schools world wide. His goal it would appear is to establish a second Ottoman Empire and all under rigid Sharia law.
Erdogan and his government see Gulen as a danger to their secular nation. (Caveat…I made an error in stating that Turkey is secular under Erdogan. It is not…e.l.) He is pressing criminal charges against Gulen for a wire tapping scandal, and he feels that this is not only a religious movement, but it is also political and illegal. He accuses the U.S. of sheltering and supporting Gulen, and he wants him extradited to Turkey to face criminal charges. All of this is factual and further information can be found online(read the Washington Post article The Answer Sheet by Valerie Strauss 3/27/12 quoting Sharon Higgins).
So the questions are why would three consecutive American administrations let Gulen operate under the aegis of American protection? Also, why is there so little media attention paid to this secret group which, like leeches, is bleeding American public schools and filching the money for their own religous/political purposes, from the pockets of American tax payers?
The LA Times published a front page story on Gulen some months ago, but they did not print a single letter to the editor written by the many teachers in Joining Forces for Education, nor other members of the general reading public which asked these questions. When they got complaints and questions as to why they dropped the whole issue, they were totally and completely silent.
Why is the mainstream media avoiding reporting on all this public information?
Is it that they are colluding with our leaders to keep this man in a protected shell while he continues to be a main player in shaping the politics of the Middle East?
———————————————————————————————
Ellen Lubic, Director, Joining Forces for Education
Educational researcher
Public Policy university educator
Please do not believe the statistics from CCSA on charter closings. Many do not open after approval or close shortly after. Also, as we have just witnessed with three Magnolia schools two years ago when they were audited, LAUSD just ignored the findings and told them to clean up their act. This is very common and as a result, we do not know how many charters are getting away with serious fiscal mismanagement and fraud with no consequences.
I expect the LA Times will be in the court room on 7/24, however the writer did have a short piece in the Contra Costa Times.
Gulen Schools in Ohio are accused of test tampering among other things. ODE is threatening the teachers who reported the wrongdoing! This is not right!!
FYI, the Gulan group here in Washington State filed a letter of intent to open a school but did not follow thru on an application. They applied last year and were turned down. I told the Washington State Charter Commission – repeatedly – about the issues around Gulan charters. I’m hoping that high awareness will keep them out of our state.
Why do parents still enroll their children in these schools? Is it because the allegations are not true, parents who are “choosing” schools are not doing thorough research (I have read articles with these claims about Gulen schools for years) or do parents not care about possible unethical practices as long as they choose the school?
I appreciate Diane sharing these issues in this easy to access blog.
I personally have spoken to many parents about the corruption at our local Gulen Harmony school here in Texas. Some parents, including myself, withdrew our children from Harmony based on principle. But some parents didn’t care about the illegal activities and kept their children enrolled. The typical response of these parents was “I don’t care so long as my child is getting a good education.”
That’s interesting.Thank you for replying.
It is encouraging to know that you and other parents are making decisions based on principles. Your children, and mine, will benefit because of your actions – thank you.
Some in my area “don’t care” as long as their kids don’t have to be exposed to “those kids” in the public schools. Oh, they feel “very sorry” about “it all” and know it is not the “children’s fault” …but really!
One cannot be expected to “sacrifice” ones own child, now can they?
As if the public schools are burning children on an alter.
Oh well.
Just what I have heard said.
When they think no one listening disagrees.
OMG! How can their children get a good education from liars and thieves? Unless….
Gulen associated charter operators knows how to market to some parents. They deliberately try to pick low income and poverty areas, some of these parents are not the most sophisticated. Additionally, they believe the crap about their children being “geniuses” they are getting A’s and B’s after failing in traditional public schools. They also buy into the “your child will go to college” “we are award winning” and those “trips to Turkey for the kids is more manipulation. If a parent questions anything or the kids become disruptive they will just work to manage them out of their schools. I have talked to several parents where this has happened. My response back to them is “You better care about the Gulen Movement or at least research them and start with what Ex-FBI Turkish Translator Sibel Edmonds and Educational Guru Diane Ravitch has to say. But they are all manipulated by all the bells and whistles of marketing. http://www.harmonyparenttruth.blogspot.com
I might also add that Harmony does a fantastic job convincing parents that their children are at a high performance school. In reality, any school can become a “miracle” school if they can select the student body.
When we returned to our local public school though, our gifted child was behind in science and writing. Other parents I have spoken to reported that their children were behind in math, science or both after attending only one year at Harmony.
You need to give credit where credit is due. The story was not published by the LA Times. It was based on a story from KPCC, which followed by several days a story written by Vanessa Romo on LA School Report.
Michael, you are right, and I corrected my error.
Many of the parents in my district do not have Internet access. Some do not speak English. Most are overwhelmed with working multiple jobs to put food on the table. Researching schools is challenging for people struggling financially.
Convenience is also an important factor to many parents, especially the school hours.
Personally, I think the extended day that is required in “no excuses”: charters is primarily a marketing ploy aimed at appealing to working parents with concerns about what their kids will be doing before and after school. And it’s a very effective one at that, because it meets those needs and, instead of hiring different staff to run before and after-school programs, charters just require teachers to work longer days, so it’s rather cheap to do. (This practice comes straight from the playbook of for-profit child care centers.)
Charters often see the added hours as opportunities to spend more time on test-prep, instead of the Arts and extracurricular activities that kids usually get (and need for healthy development) in traditional before and after-school programs.
What folks often fail to realize is that if more instruction is what is needed to close the achievement gap between poor and higher income kids, then given all those extra hours, day after day, year after year, the scores of charter students SHOULD be outshining the scores of kids who attend schools with regular hours, but typically they don’t (except maybe in charters with high attrition rates due to counseling out or otherwise rejecting high needs students).
Children in charters are often required to attend school on Saturday, too. This means that in the afternoons and on weekends, those kids are missing out on the kinds of enriching recreational and social activities that higher income kids usually get. All too often, it looks like charter schools for low income children of color are the bargain basement of schooling, with lots of schlock in supply –and the exact opposite of what is effective with higher income kids.
In Newark renew schools also have the extended day. Anonymous Educator, you are correct that this schedule is attractive to parents. Some children are also involved in afterschool programs. More than fifty percent of adults in Newark do not own cars. Parents are relieved to drop off their kids, take public transportation to work and pick up their children at a late hour. It gives them peace of mind to know that their children are being supervised by adults.
So the whole narrative of giving parents a choice goes out the window if parents are not able to research schools properly.
Why are these parents choosing charter schools? DO the charters reach out to them? Are hte public schools not reaching out?
In my area, the parents I know are not low income and they are choosing charters (including Gulen and for-profit schools).
Most Charter schools have marketing budgets, but traditional schools do not. I work in a magnet school where we work very hard to promote ourselves each fall to recruit the class for the next year. The teachers in the regular school don’t understand why we do this so early. They think it can waIt for Spring, and then they don’t really have a program that looks that great. It’s a new world.
I also notice that some parents are catching on to the fact that charters manage to get rid of the most challenging and difficult students, while traditional schools have fewer resources to deal with them. Traditional schools will be left with the most challenging students ( both academically and behaviorally), and then what? This is a whole new type of segregation.
Concerned Mom,
Why are the parents in your area choosing charters? I am interested to hear about what is going on in more affluent communities.
NJ Teacher,
I have to add that the elementary schools my district are primarily Title 1 schools, but my acquaintances are middle class and the reasons they give for choosing charters:
For many, charter = better (a few watched Waiting for Superman and were sold).
small class size
their child is “gifted” and the neighborhood school isn’t good enough
their child have learning issues and the neighborhood school isn’t good enough
tenure is evil and that’s why public schools are failing (yet these same parents complain when teachers at their charters are fired)
They have nothing to lose because if they don’t like the charter, they can go to their base school.
I have to laugh when they share the innovation at these charters – for example, phonetic spelling, this has done at my child’s school before he started there. I don’t know if I like it or not, but it is hardly innovated.
In my neighborhood my children are the only ones at the public school, until HS, most people in my neighborhood send their children to private schools. I think they are afraid of the demographics in the public schools and fear their children won’t be properly educated with all those bad influences. However, my child was taught how to flip the bird from a private school neighbor :).
That is interesting concerned mom. I have heard the same reasons for choosing a charter school in my area. I must admit that I was convinced by some of these parents, and that is how come my child ended up in Harmony a few years ago. At that time, I didn’t find anything online that was concerning about Harmony. Also, I never heard of Gulen. The only complaints I could find online at that time was the lack of extracurricular activities and bad cafeteria food. Once there, many of us involved parents became suspicious of the administration. Many questionable behaviors were observed. Downright mismanagement, excessive focus and catering to political leaders and government officials, and discrimination against Americans, females (including students), and special needs students were all too common at our Harmony school. Most involved parents, including myself, eventually pulled our children out. The experience has been beneficial in some ways though. I learned to appreciate all of the little things that our local public school does for the students. Furthermore, my child has learned to interact with all types of children since returning to the public school, which I feel is a huge benefit later in life.
I research education topics more extensively now. This approach has led me to this blog. It is essential that parents learn all they can so they can make wise decisions about education, etc.
Thank you Diane Ravitch for the valuable work you do!
Thanks Concerned! The overriding concern is protecting their children from the public at large. I love it!
NJ Teacher,
I love your summary:
“The overriding concern is protecting their children from the public at large.”
You have summed it up perfectly.
I saved my vocal cords and hunt and peck typing time in the future. I bet you are a wonderful teacher (I am in awe of teacher’s abilities to get to the main point and also do it in such a way that prompts more thinking and reflection). Thank you for asking questions and responding.
I have to admit sometimes after speaking to charter parents I do wonder if my own choices are the best for my children. That’s another reason why I like this blog.
Thanks for the kind words Concerned Mom. I am in a bit of a funk. Since I am an ESL teacher, I consider English to be my specialty. I have had the privilege to do a little writing and I would like to do more. I love the back and forth of this blog. One night I couldn’t sleep and a few of us had a lively blog discussion. I felt so much better.
The best part about choices is we never know if we have made the right ones until it is way too late. If I were to give advice about choosing a school which of course I wouldn’t, I would look for lots of exposure to the arts, field trips and diversity. My father was always a proponent of public schools because you have to learn to get along with all kinds of people. Of course my family could not afford any educational alternatives, but that was beside the point.
Concerned Mom, majority of the Gulen schools are in high poverty low income areas. It is deliberate. Additionally, they shamelessly market any way they can from door hangers to creating a sense of urgency with a waiting list and lottery process. The Gulen operated schools know how to slam online rankings for schools and have their own contests they operate then advertise as “Award Winning School” I-Sweep, Math Matters, Science Olympiads, Turkish Olympiad, CONSEF are some of their contests that only THEIR students win at. Currently they are pushing the STEM and STEAM models, generally they have the same scientific experiments from coast to coast and worldwide. Americans are gullible and those with a lower education level, may have not learned critical thinking skills to analyze marketing, Public Relations and Advertising. They also get local lawmakers to come to the schools for photo opportunities. They are also heavy into campaign contributions, interfaith dialogue and sending academia, lawmakers and media to Turkey. http://www.gulenschoolsworldwide.blogspot.com
You’re putting your writing skills to good use here.
Ugh:
“Last week, Camden educators got a letter from state superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard telling them about “a new series of professional development opportunities intended to build on the skills of teachers and school leaders.” Here’s the kicker: “The new training series includes support from the Relay Graduate School of Education, which is one of the best principal training programs in the country.”
“Who are these founders of Relay GSE, you ask? Surprise! They’re none other than Norman Atkins, founder and Board Chair at Uncommon Schools, and David Levin, who Taught for America for three years and then co-founded KIPP. (Fun fact: in 2012, the six (6) members of the Relay GSE “leadership team” made a combined $1.1 million, with Norman Atkins bringing in a salary of $247,000.)”
No conflict there! Just ignore that all these people are inter-connected and hire one another, exclusively. It’s VERY open and innovative. As long as you hire the same 150 national managers and consultants. The “rock stars”, I believe they are called.
http://teacherbiz.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/coming-to-camden-reformy-professional-development-from-relay-gse/
See, this is what I mean about politicians promoting ed tech as a replacement for adequate school funding:
“Today President Obama is announcing ConnectED in a school district that brought this concept to life. Mooresville is in the bottom ten out of 115 districts in spending per student, but performs second in student achievement. Mooresville has accomplished this by going all-in on the promise of education technology, and since providing one-to-one digital devices for every student and training teachers on how to use them effectively in the classroom, graduation, academic achievement, and attendance rates are up significantly.”
They shouldn’t be selling this. They are blatantly promoting the idea that a device is a replacement for adequately funding schools.
Can someone tell me how this is different than what Jeb Bush promotes, with his lobbying group?
The fact is they are selling “blended learning” as a cheap way to get scores up. This isn’t even subtle. The President may as well say “buy this device and you can continue to under-fund these schools”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/06/06/bringing-america-s-students-digital-age
Amen, Chiara!
Gulen Politicians reap a lot of benefits in Awards, Free Trips to Turkey and Campaign Contributions. http://www.gulenpoliticians.blogspot.com
Excessive use of technology is not recommended for school aged children by some health professionals. Please see link below.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html
Sen. Tom Harkin and others exposed analogous abuses in the for-profit higher ed industry (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/education/25education.html?_r=0) and held extensive hearings in 2010-2011. That we knew for-profit ed was rampantly abusing tax-payer funds and still invited the model into k-12 is unfathomable to me.
The Common Core (as bad as it is) is not the Trojan Horse…..it is “school choice” that will be the end of public education. Finally some light is being shed on this bad idea.
All we have to do is look at Chile if we want to know what the end result of privatizing education will be. Students rioting in the streets to demand a quality education with credentialed teachers that can teach them something real. In Chile 56% of its schools are charter schools which although taxpayer funded are also allowed to charge parents to send their students there. It has created a tiered system that is completely unfair and has stratified the population and denied many students access to school.
Milton Friedman took his bad ideas down to Chile and wrecked education there. He took his bad ideas to New Orleans and wrecked education there. The experiment has run its course. Privatization is a failure. Can we rally around that fact and end this Rheeform now before we get in too deep?
Here’s what’s going on in Illinois. http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/search-warrants-reveal-details-fbi-raid-concept-schools/mon-07212014-622pm
This does not surprise me when it comes to Magnolia. I have evidence of how they cherry pick their students, at least that happens at MSA8 in Bell, where they request test scores, grades, and discipline reports PRIOR to the application process. I sent my evidence to the district and they did nothing about it…
This sounds big! The walls come tumbling down!
We all know that charter school oversight is a joke. Everyone knows that embezzlement is modus of operation at charter schools. Why do you think everyone wants to open a charter school? Is it for the education of the students? No, its for the free public money that can be used anyway they want and if they are caught, slap them on the wrist and tell them to embezzle a different way next time. People, its dirty, its political and the last people it benefits is the students. However, the public perceives the charters are better than public schools, if we were really interested in improving public schools, we would have expanded magnet schools and apply their philosophy. We instead opted to reinvent the wheel, a very broken, ineffective wheel at that.
I guess closing a school is what the deregulators and privatizers call “greater accountability.” I really wonder what story the high achieving, middle class families Magnolia attracted are telling themselves about this crash and burn.
Here is what the story is to me:
These charter schools are suped up speedsters in the Race to the Top, fueled by the test scores the students brought with them that are the only things that got the ignition going in the first place. They take families, teachers, special education students, whole neighborhoods–for a fast and reckless ride. Tune ups along the way are forbidden and there are no pit stops to check the engine. Bathroom stops to tend to the passengers’ human needs are obstacles to reaching the checkered flag at the finish line. Here they come around the final turn, gaining speed, then–CRASH!!!